Henry
Roy Cohn's doctor, whom he has been going to since 1958. Diagnoses Roy with AIDS. Henry is almost considered a small character in the play. He is first seen in Act 1, Scene 9. The scene starts off with information about the virus. Henry tells Roy, "Nobody knows what causes it. And nobody knows how to cure it. The best theory is that we blame a retrovirus, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It's presence is made known to us by the useless antibodies which appear in reaction to its entrance into the bloodstream through a cut, or an orifice. The antibodies are powerless to protect the body against it... (Kushner 48). Henry diagnoses Roy with the disease after removing lesions called Kaposi's sarcomas.
Henry also tells Roy, "...And you have a pronounced swelling of glands in your neck, groin, and armpits-lymphadnopathy is another sign. And you have oral candidiasis and maybe a little more fungus under the fingernails of two digits on your right hand..." (Kushner 48). Henry is a character that is either afraid of Roy, loyal to Roy, or indifferent to Roy. Henry knows that Roy is a gay man in the closet. In one part during the scene Roy gets angry at Henry for telling him that he has a homosexual/drug addict disease. Henry replies, "Roy, you have been seeing me since 1958. Apart from facelifts I have treated you for everything from syphilis...to venereal warts. In your rectum. which you may have gotten from a whore in Dallas, but it wasn't a female whore" (Kushner 50). In the end Henry writes down that Roy has liver cancer, but he puts Roy on the AIDS level of the hospital. There is some evidence to suggest that Henry is afraid of Roy, and some evidence to suggest that he can't wait for Roy to die.
After Roy is in the hospital, Belize goes to talk to him. Roy tells Belize that they did his facelifts without putting him out. Belize replies, "No doctor would agree to do that" (Kushner 157). Roy replies, "I can get anyone to do anything I want..." (Kushner 157). On page fifty in the play Henry admits to doing Roy's facelifts for him. Apparently the doctor that was manipulated by Roy to do a facelift without anestesia was Henry. The evidence that Henry can't wait for Roy to die is circumstantial. When Henry is admitting Roy into the hospital he tells Belize, "Emergency admit, Room 1013. Here are the charts. Start the drip, Gamma G and he'll ned a CTM, radiation in the morning so clear diet and..." (Kushner 155). When Belize is talking to Roy after Henry leaves he tells him, "This didn't come from me and I don't like you but let me tell you a thing or two: They have you down for radiation tomorrow for the sarcoma lesions, and you don't want to let them do that, because radiation will kill the T-Cells and you don't have any you can afford to lose..." (Kushner 160). Henry is a medical doctor and Belize is a nurse. Why did Henry schedule Roy for radiation if he already knew about the T-cells? Henry is also the one that told Roy about the AZT medicine and the waiting list on page 50. Belize tells Henry about the double blind. "Watch out for the double blind. They'll want you to sign something that says they can give you M&M's instead of the real drug. You'll die, but they'll get the kind of statistics they can publish in the New England Journal of Medicine..." (Kushner 160). Henry is a doctor and probably knows all about the placebo part of the trials but doesn't tell Roy. Why?
Henry is a character that really spells out the hatred that even professionals have for Roy.